RAM is almost full but I don't have many apps running. Why?

My phone is running slow and choppy - so I checked the running apps in RAM. My phone indicates that I have 670 MB consumed and only 171 MB available but if I add up the memory footprint of all the apps that are running, I only calculate about 200 MB used. 670 MB - 200 MB is 470 MB. Where is this additional 470 MB being used? How can I clear it? Rebooting doesn't help.

My phone is running slow and choppy - so I checked the running apps in RAM. My phone indicates that I have 670 MB consumed and only 171 MB available but if I add up the memory footprint of all the apps that are running, I only calculate about 200 MB used. 670 MB - 200 MB is 470 MB. Where is this additional 470 MB being used? How can I clear it? Rebooting doesn't help.

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You probably have a lot of apps running that you are not aware of. Go to menu>settings>apps and select running. You'll see apps, settings, and other functions that you're probably aware of. Now, look in the upper right corner just below the 3g/4g bars and time and you'll see "show cached processess". Select "show cached processess". You'll probably see a lot of apps/services that may not be running but are eating up memory. The only way to eliminate this is to freeze the bloatware and apps that you never use or delete the app...and I don't recommend you delete an app. To freeze the unwanted/never used bloatware and other apps you don't use you'll have to be rooted and use something like Titanium Backup to freeze the app/bloatware so that they never start and never are "cached". There are a number of apps that came on your phone that you can "disable" without root. To disable an app go to apps and select "disable" from the selection box that would normally allow you to uninstall. You can't unstall the bloatware but you can disable many of them.

To ease you mind a little, Android OS does a very good job of managing memory. If a system app/function etc is cached and the OS needs the memory to perform a function it will automatically swap out that app/function to use the memory that has been cached. Memory management on these phones is much better than on your PC. It's not perfect...but it is pretty darn good.

My phone is running slow and choppy - so I checked the running apps in RAM. My phone indicates that I have 670 MB consumed and only 171 MB available but if I add up the memory footprint of all the apps that are running, I only calculate about 200 MB used. 670 MB - 200 MB is 470 MB. Where is this additional 470 MB being used? How can I clear it? Rebooting doesn't help.

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You can also download an app called 1tapCleaner. It does not require root to run. It will do a pretty good job of clearing the cache files that apps accumulate. It's free in the Play Store.

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My phone is running slow and choppy - so I checked the running apps in RAM. My phone indicates that I have 670 MB consumed and only 171 MB available but if I add up the memory footprint of all the apps that are running, I only calculate about 200 MB used. 670 MB - 200 MB is 470 MB. Where is this additional 470 MB being used? How can I clear it? Rebooting doesn't help.

Click to expand...

Apps that are installed, even if not running will consume some RAM as well as storage. Go to Menu, Manage Apps, tap on the tab at the top labeled "Internal Storage" then click on the Menu button down below again and choose "Sort by size". It will pull the largest app to the top and descending from there. Once you see them, you'll also see how many MB or KB (MB is worse) that they are consuming. Go through them from top to bottom and concentrating mostly toward the top uninstall any apps that you don't use/need/want.

Then go over to the "Running" tab at the top, and in the list below you'll see all apps and services running, and the amount of MB or KB they are taking up of RAM. Just as above, look at apps you are familiar with and see which ones use large amounts of RAM but you don't need. Go back and delete them (or deactivate if pre-installed). For instance, Facebook and Swype are two big RAM hogs.